Office of Financial

Home , Anemometer

NYS Mesonet 518/442-MESO Lecture Center Suite SB-28 1400 Washington Avenue Albany, New York 12222 Contact: Jerry Brotzge ([email protected])

New York State Mesonet Standard Network Data (Updated on 5/12/2021)

The data described here are created by New York State Mesonet at University at Albany. In the event that the data are used for any form of publications, please use the following statement in the acknowledgement: “This research is made possible by the New York State (NYS) Mesonet. Original funding for the NYS Mesonet was provided by Federal Emergency Management Agency grant FEMA-4085-DR-NY, with the continued support of the NYS Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Services; the state of New York; the Research Foundation for the State University of New York (SUNY); the University at Albany, SUNY; the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC) at SUNY Albany; and the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (DAES) at SUNY Albany.”

1. Introduction

The New York State Mesonet (NYSM) is a new advanced, statewide weather station network that provides unprecedented weather information across the state. This network is the first of its kind in New York and consists of 126 standard surface weather stations across the state with an average spacing of 17 miles (see map below). The site metadata including latitude, longitude, climate division, commissioned date and related information can be obtained at: http://nysmesonet.org/about/sites#?stid=VOOR&network=nysm.

Each of the Mesonet’s 126 weather stations collects observations of surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, snow depth, and soil moisture and temperature at three depths (5, 25, and 50 cm). Each site is also outfitted with a camera that collects still images.

While sensors sample data at relatively high frequencies (every 3 to 60 seconds, typically), averages of observations are calculated over 5-minute periods. The 5-min averaged data are collected from across the network at the University at Albany, where the data are quality controlled, organized into a given file format, and then archived and disseminated to users. Several data formats are used, including CSV and NetCDF. The list of variables archived and their units are listed in the table below. A series of various quality control tests are applied to the data (e.g., range tests, spatial tests, temporal tests, etc.), and all bad data are quality controlled out, meaning that these data are not given out to users. As placeholders for bad/missing data, netCDF files use the FillValue attribute (generally -996), and CSV files use an empty field to indicate missing data.

2. Data format

The 5-min data for all variables at all 126 stations can be provided in two data formats, CSV (common delimited values) and NetCDF. The short names of variables are used in the data and are explained in the table below. All files are organized according to date, i.e. each file contains all 5-min data for that day and that month at all stations. For each day, there are 288 data points for the 5-min data. The data value at Minute 05 means the average of data from 00 min to 05 min. Note that “wmax_prop”, “wmax_sonic”, “precip_max_intensity” are the maximum value of last 5 minutes, and “precip” and “precip_total” are accumulated values (not average). For NetCDF file, the name convention is yyyymmdd.nc, where yyyy is 4-digit year, mm for numeric month, dd for date. The date is specified as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), not LST (local solar time). Eastern Standard Time (EST) is 5 hours behind UTC, and Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) is 4 hours behind UTC. The NetCDF file is self-explanatory. If you request the data from our website, the variables, stations, temporal resolution and data format would be different and are based on your requests.

3. Special notes on the data: 1) Before you select sites, please refer to the commission date in the metadata online when the sites were installed to make sure that there are enough data to do what you want to do. 2) Sometimes there might be sensor and/or system failure, so the data were not available for a period of time. Please check the data availability before you analyze them. 3) Please remember to exclude missing data values in your calculation. 4) It is known that the pyranometer (measuring solar radiation) at 17 sites is shadowed by trees, mountains or other objects. As a result, the solar radiation measurements are biased low during the shadow period. Those 17 sites are given in the list on Page 4 and explained in details. Please exercise caution when using the solar radiation data at those sites. Please also note that the shadow also potentially introduces errors to temperature data, especially for temperature at 2 m. 5) Prior to spring 2018, most pyranometers had some shadows on them during the morning hours, caused by the placement of solar panels to their south. Thus, a majority of sites will have artificial shadowing of the pyranometer during the early morning hours; this problem is most prominent during the winter months with the lower solar angle. This issue was

A University at Albany, SUNY Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and Atmospheric Science Research Center collaboration with the NYS Department of Homeland and Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Administration fixed in Spring 2018, as all pyranometers were raised to 2.8 m, a height above the solar panel shadows. 6) The snow depth (SR50A) data are noisy and flagged out during warm months (around May to October) since the signals are interfered by grass, vegetation and other things underneath and should not be used. 7) The soil probes at Old Forge (OLDF) was moved to the close-by external snow site on 9/25/2019 since the location was not representative of local conditions and too wet. All data before 9/26/2019 were flagged. 8) Soil moisture data for frozen soil are flagged out. Frozen soil is determined based on thresholds for soil temperature and real dielectric permittivity. If you request soil temperature or moisture data online, it also outputs the frozen soil flag (frozen05/frozen25/frozen50), which is 1 for frozen soil and 0 for non-frozen soil. 9) Although a lot of QA/QC procedures (both automated and manual ones) are applied to the data to flag erroneous data, there might still be some undetected. Please make your own judgement on questionable data.

Short_name Long_name Units Min Max tair air temperature at 2 meters degC -30 50 ta9m air temperature at 9 meters degC -30 50 tslo slow-response air temperature at 2 meters degC -30 50 relh relative humidity at 2 meters % 3 103 srad solar radiation W/m^2 -0.4 1500 pres station pressure mbar 800 1050 wspd_sonic wind speed at 10 meters, measured by sonic m/s 0 40 anemometer wmax_sonic wind speed maximum at 10 meters, measured by m/s 0 60 sonic anemometer wssd_sonic wind speed standard deviation at 10 meters, m/s 0 10 measured by sonic anemometer wdir_sonic wind direction at 10 meters, measured by sonic degree 0 360 anemometer wdsd_sonic wind direction standard deviation at 10 meters, degree 0 81 measured by sonic anemometer wspd_prop wind speed at 10 meters, measured by wind m/s 0 40 monitor wmax_prop wind speed maximum at 10 meters, measured by m/s 0 60 wind monitor wssd_prop wind speed standard deviation at 10 meters, m/s 0 10 measured by wind monitor wdir_prop wind direction at 10 meters, measured by wind degree 0 360 monitor

A University at Albany, SUNY Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and Atmospheric Science Research Center collaboration with the NYS Department of Homeland and Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Administration wdsd_prop wind direction standard deviation at 10 meters, degree 0 81 measured by wind monitor wspd_merge wind speed at 10 meters, using preferred* m/s 0 40 instrument wmax_merge wind speed at 10 meters, using preferred* m/s 0 60 instrument wssd_merge wind speed at 10 meters, using preferred* m/s 0 10 instrument wdir_merge wind speed at 10 meters, using preferred* degree 0 360 instrument wdsd_merge wind speed at 10 meters, using preferred* degree 0 81 instrument precip Precipitation accumulated since 00 UTC mm 0 500 precip_total Precipitation running total with occasional resets mm 0 5000 to 0 mm. precip_max_intensit maximum 1-minute precipitation intensity mm/min 0 40 y ts05 soil temperature at 5 cm degC -20 55 ts25 soil temperature at 25 cm degC -20 55 ts50 soil temperature at 50 cm degC -20 55 sm05 soil moisture, water fraction by volume, at 5 cm m^3/m^3 0 0.7 sm25 soil moisture, water fraction by volume, at 25 cm m^3/m^3 0 0.7 sm50 soil moisture, water fraction by volume, at 50 cm m^3/m^3 0 0.7 snow_depth snow depth m * wind _merge columns use: Prior to March 1, 2018: _prop if data is available, otherwise _sonic Starting March 1, 2018: _sonic if data is available, otherwise _prop